Khmer Rouge Rule

Khmer Rouge rule

Stupa which houses the skulls of those killed at Choeung Ek

As the war ended, a draft US AID report observed that the country faced famine in 1975, with 75% of its draft animals destroyed, and that rice planting for the next harvest would have to be done “by the hard labour of seriously malnourished people”. The report predicted that

“Without large-scale external food and equipment assistance there will be widespread starvation between now and next February … Slave labour and starvation rations for half the nation’s people (probably heaviest among those who supported the republic) will be a cruel necessity for this year, and general deprivation and suffering will stretch over the next two or three years before Cambodia can get back to rice self-sufficiency”.